LONG TERM CARE

Long Term Care insurance is protection that is bought in advance to protect your assets against the possible need for 24 hour home health care, assisted living, or nursing home care.

This type of insurance pays a specified dollar amount for a time period to a licensed facility to provide assistance to the insured. The insured must need assistance with one of these six items.
1. bathing
2. dressing
3. feeding
4. using the bathroom
5. an incontinence problem
6. physical or verbal assistance to help a non-cognitive person not to be a threat to him/herself. Non-cognition may be the result of stroke, dementia, Alzheimer's, or other similar conditions.

Definitions within a policy

Daily Benefit Amount: The maximum amount paid by the policy per day, during the benefit period.

Benefit Period: The amount of time that the insurance company will pay the benefit. This time period can range from 1-6 years or have a lifetime benefit, which will pay for the time from elimination period until the individual no longer needs the coverage.

Elimination Period: This will vary between companies but range from 0-120 days. This is the waiting period from when assisted care is needed until policy payments begin.

Inflation Protection: This option increases the benefit limits by a specified % each year to offset the increased medical costs so the daily benefit amount is sufficient in the future.